After a two-week closure for construction, Crown Heights cafe Daughter — known for its jazz nights, stoop-style seating and inventive small plates menu — has reopened for all-day service, this time primarily as a coffee and wine bar. The Aug. 15 reopening marks a reconfiguration of the space and a new menu.
The cafe's owners removed the double-decker oven from the snug 900-square-foot space to create more room and simplify the menu, getting rid of most of the small plate offerings. The space, which became a local destination almost immediately after opening in 2021, will now focus on drinks and events. Pastries will be made off-site.
“We had to simplify. I loved the food so much, but I knew it didn't make sense for this space,” Co-owner Adam Keita said of the transformation. “We're fine-tuning ourselves. We actually are finding our identity.”
Keita said he is sad to see the great food go, but excited about what this transition means for creativity at Daughter.
“I think it's like giving a child a crayon and some construction paper — it's really interesting to see what children come up with. It's the same for us. I think we gave ourselves so many tools that we forgot that this is the basics,” Keita said.
For now, Daughter will focus on serving simple, high-quality wines and coffees. As part of Daughter’s revamping, natural wine guru Ava Trilling has breathed new life into the cafe’s selection.
“I'd say my favorite wine on the menu right now is the Laurent Bannwarth 2020 Muscat from Alsace," Trilling told BK Reader. "It's been a pretty hot summer in the city, and that bottle never fails to hit the spot. It's bright and refreshing, with tons of acidity; after one sip, you're hankering for more. It's lemony and tangy and simply a blast to drink."
Some things aren’t changing, like the ideology behind Daughter, Keita said. Owners and friends Keita, Sarah Elisabeth Huggins and Brian Stoothhoff started the coffee shop as a community and sustainability-focused cafe where locals could use the space to host meetings, events and order wine as early as 10:00am and coffee as late as 10:00pm.
“You have to remember, coffee shops are drinking gentrification spots,” Keita said. “I knew that the moment we opened this place: We're gentrifiers. And because we know that, let's do better, let's work hard to make sure that we involve people in the community and don't go too far. I love having great stuff, but sometimes it's just like, oh, great stuff doesn't have to be expensive stuff.”
Keita said accessibility has always been a priority for the cafe. There will always be an affordable pastry on the menu, and glasses of wine hover around the $13 mark.
Soon, Keita plans to bring pop-up events and collaborations into the renovated space, especially ones that feature chefs and culinary artists of color.
“I want to do more things that focus on POC and Brown folks,” he said. “I feel like everybody's still trying to figure out how to bring the natural wine world into like the POC world. It really is hard. 'Cause just naturally, coffee shops and wine places, they're not built for people that look like me.”
For upcoming events at Daughter, located at 1090 St. Johns Pl. in Crown Heights, go here.
